The invention concerns a furniture hinge that has a door stop part that comprises an insertion cup and is attached on a furniture door, on which a pivoting arm that is connected to a furniture body is arranged, and that comprises a damping device having at least one damping cylinder that engages in the door stop part.
Particularly during quick closing motions, the closing force that a furniture hinge exerts on the furniture door that is to be closed results in the furniture door slamming shut on the furniture body. In an effort to reduce the impact effect and the resulting noise, it is known to arrange buffers on the furniture body or on the furniture door. However, because said buffers necessarily must be thin, this only results in a minor reduction of the impact effect.
Therefore, it is known to arrange a damping device on the furniture hinge with which the furniture door makes contact at the end of its closing motion. The damping device comprises a damping cylinder with whose piston rod the furniture door or a fitting attached thereon makes contact so that the furniture door is slowed down until it is fully closed. Since the damping effect of the damping cylinders is velocity-dependent, the damping device does not exert any force on the furniture door when the furniture door is closed, which means that the furniture door stays in the closed position.
In a known furniture hinge as described in the introduction (EP 1 538 293 B1) the damping device is arranged on the stop part of the body and engages with the door stop part. In another known furniture hinge equipped with a damping device (US 2004/0205935 A1) as described in the introduction, the piston rod of the damping cylinder of the damping device arranged on the body stop part extends in the direction of the furniture door. When the furniture door is being closed, its door stop part makes contact with the exposed end of the piston rod so that the motion of the furniture door is dampened.
The known embodiments of furniture hinges combined with a damping device have in common that the additional space that is required for the damping device is considerable. The available inside space of the furniture body is reduced due to the damping device that extends into it.
It is desirable to provide a furniture hinge with a damping device as described in the introduction in which no or only very limited additional visible space is required for the damping device.
According to an aspect of the invention a damping device comprises one, preferably two parallel damping cylinders that are arranged, at least partially, in bores of the furniture door, in that the cylinder axes of the damping cylinders extend essentially perpendicular to the door plane and in that the damping cylinders are moved by means of the pivoting arm during its pivoting motion into the closed position of the furniture door.
Since the damping cylinders are largely arranged in bores of the furniture door, they do not require any additional space and in particular do not extend into the interior space of the furniture body. No additional components are required for the body stop part to move the damping device. The existing pivoting arm that is arranged on the insertion cup is used for this purpose.
In an embodiment of the furniture hinge as a multi-joint furniture hinge the pivoting arm is one of the two hinge control arms.
In an embodiment of the furniture hinge as a single-joint furniture hinge the support arm that is arranged on the insertion cup and is connected to the furniture body represents the pivoting arm that acts on the damping device and carries out a pivoting motion during the closing motion of the furniture door.
One or both of the damping cylinders of the damping device can at least partially be arranged within a cup bore in the furniture door that accommodates the insertion cup. The cup bore usually provides sufficient space for this so that no additional bore is needed to accommodate the damping cylinders.
It also is possible to arrange each damping cylinder at least partially in a bore of the furniture door that is arranged next to the cup bore.
The damping cylinders may also be arranged at least partially in a peg bore that accommodates a fastening peg of the door stop part. Although this requires a larger peg bore compared to customary peg bores, the costs of making the bore are the same.